Wouldn't it be great if the Kippers made major inroads at the general election - maybe a couple of MPs?

a - it would be hilarious

b - so much scope for us here.

Bring it on!

And while I'm on, the BBC's coverage has been completely skewed. This isn't an earthquake - they don't actually have control of any councils. Despite this, Nick Robinson has gone off at a bit of a tangent.

And while I'm on, the BBC's coverage has been completely skewed. This isn't an earthquake - they don't actually have control of any councils. Despite this, Nick Robinson has gone off at a bit of a tangent.

You'd think the bloody world had ended. I keep thinking David Dimbleby's going to say 'Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of Kings', then start chucking the furniture around.

To get to where they are from pretty much a standing start is very interesting and to be honest your contempt for so many voters does not become you.

Presumably, you're referring to Scroat rather than myself, but I'd make the point that he doesn't refer to the voters, many of whom have reasons other than racism for voting UKIP, largely that it will piss someone off. Whilst I hate UKIP, I do generally like pissing people off who've had power for too long, so I'm a little torn. However, it doesn't do to be too sanguine about voters' motives; when my dad told my brother that he was voting UKIP, he apparently said, 'I don't care if they're racist. I'm a racist as well'. Whilst I can see what little humour there is in this sentence, all things considered (he's old enough to be harmless, at least, and he says quite bluntly what UKIP would much rather he kept to himself), it's not a statement that provides me with a great deal of hope for the future of British politics or the direction it's voters want it to go in.

Indeed so. I'm not torn about voting for UKIP myself, which I would never do, but I appreciate that people want to protest and that Farage give his views the thin veneer of dignity that allows them to do that. I don't really think people always do what's in everyone's best interests (who does?), but if you consider the alternatives, all you can do is let the people decide. If they make a bugger of it, then at least we've only got ourselves to blame (not that anyone will ever admit that).

hard to envision what a "perfect" party would look like, but clear policies, informed by evidence, and then implemented would have to be a part of that.

The problem is that hardly anyone wants that, they want vague aspirations, informed by their gut instinct and easily withdrawable in favour of some other shit policy as a reaction when they inevitably go wrong. Everyone wants to listen to the experts, until they tell them something that they don't want to hear, at which point they become 'so-called "experts"'. This basically explains the rise of Michael Gove.

Shouldn't we all be making nob gags on the other page or something? This is Newsbiscuit, isn't it?

"Yes, if we knew that, we could address that issue and undermine the source of their dissatisfaction."

"We want to leave the EU"

"Yes - if we did that, their support would drain away. I wonder what it is that they are so concerned about?"

"We want to leave the EU"

"I agree. A mystery, isn't it? There doesn't seem to be anything we can do to stop them!"

"We want to leave the EU"

"It must be an evil fascist conspiracy!"

"We want to leave the EU"

"Perhaps. In that case, there is nothing we can do except wring our hands and insult them."

"We want to leave the EU"

"Anyone would think that UKIP were misguided enough to have reservations about our continued membership of the EU!"

"We want to leave the EU"

"Don't be silly. No-one could possibly want to leave the EU. After all, if it were not for the EU we would never have had Concorde, the Channel Tunnel, Interpol ... it would be impossible to trade with any European country or travel there."

"We want to leave the EU"

"Yes, you're right. Obviously, we all know that no-on wants to leave the EU so there is no point in even discusing it. But that still leves the mystery - why would anyone ever want to support UKIP?

[UKIP spokesman places megaphone 1mm from the ear of rival politician and bellows]

Yeah but Titus, people vote for parties for all sorts of reasons that are little to do with their manifestos/policies. Usually habit/that's how they've always voted/that's who people like us vote for, etc. I agree you'd have to be pretty thick to vote for UKIP if you didn't want to leave the EU ... actually someone else can do the punchline here...

The EU is a pretty minor concern for most people. Whilst people tend to say they want to leave the EU when asked an opinion, they tend to rank it very far down their list of priorities, roundabout the same as the colour of milk floats. This likely enough demonstrates that visceral, first-thing-you-think-about-when-you-wake-up-in-the-morning hatred, in short Titus style hatred of the EU, isn't the primary driving factor behind the UKIP vote. I'd pull up there polls for you now, but the UK Polling Report doesn't seem to have a decent search facility.

"The latest YouGov poll on UK voter priorities (published at the beginning of this month) shows the EU languishing at the very bottom of the table. Only 6% identified the EU as one of their top priorities – just above the oh-so-sexy issue of "transport" at 5%. In contrast, the most important issues for voters were the economy (82%) and immigration (a distant second at 43%). These were not atypical results – the EU regularly appears as the lowest priority in such surveys – and when people vote in a referendum they rarely make a decision based on their least important priority."
Guardian, 18 / 2 / 11
A couple of years back, but these numbers haven't changed as far as I've seen and there's no reason why there should have been a huge surge since then; Britain is as apathetic in it's anti-EU position as it's always been.

I suspect that UKIP's share of the overal votes in the local council elections was rather smaller than the proportion of people who would like us to quit the EU. (Haven't been able to find any figures yet.)

So the question might be "why wsn't the UKIP vote even greater?" except that the answer to that is fairly obvious.

UKIP Share of the overall votes 17%. A drop from 23% in previous elections.

On a 36% voter turnout, only 6.12% of people in the UK voted UKIP (significant because as a 'growing' party supporters are more likely to come out and vote.)

All of the above when they have had national coverage disproportionate to the share of the vote. The facts don't point to a overwhelming support for them and their policies, even if you pretend that there was no protest vote in there. Shouting the loudest doesn't prove anything.

They will cut into other's votes no doubt, but by how much? I'm not sure. They have not been as successful as the BBC or some others would have you believe, but they have to find a story in an otherwise uneventful election and make that story blown out of proportion to justify 24 hour news reports

Even if they do well in the European elections, if you put the two results together it will show despite Farage's protestations, they are a one issue party. People may like what they say on Europe but don't trust them to run their day-to-day lives.

Only 17% voted UKIP. So, considering that only UKIP are willing to take us out of the EU, and that all the other parties bar one won't even offer us a referendum, the only surprise is that the UKIP vote was not much greater.

Shows that (1) all the panic about a massive vote for UKIP is bollocks (2) the reason for the votes they did get is blindingly obvious - as my sarcastic earlier post pointed out.

All due to (a) a slack news week and (b) the comfortable, complacent established parties resentment at having their perches rattled - which may be no bad thing.

Dear God, does anyone really think people voted UKIP because they want to leave the EU?

It's jobs, Titus, and fear for job losses blamed on immigration.

That, and the fact that UKIP seem to be the only 'credible' (hahaha) protest party.
Who used to be the party of the protest vote? Lib Dems. Now they are part of what people are protesting about.
Who was by far the biggest loser in these elections where UKIP gained? Lib Dems.

People don't give a flying fuck about the EU. People just care about their own conditions.

Titus, if UKIP announced tomorrow that they were dropping the EU policy and keeping all their other policies the same, their popularity would not change. Even though they have no more policies, other than on immigration.

If you think all their supporters are motivated by wanting to leave the EU, then you are hugely, desperately wrong.

UKIP voters are motivated by desire to PROTEST, not to leave the EU. They don't even know what the EU is.